-by Kelsey Minten (CII-4)
The effects of two years living in Barranquilla, Colombia don’t fade easily. That’s what I’m learning almost a year and a half after returning from Peace Corps service and settling into my new life in New York City. The Puerto Rican or Dominican Spanish I hear on the subway floats just as naturally into my ears as el español costeño. The exorbitant prices for tropical fruits in my grocery store don’t stop me from buying a mango every once in awhile. The salsa music roaring from cars on street corners in my East Harlem neighborhood in the summer makes me feel at home. It all transports me back to the loud, hot, vibrant city in Colombia where I was challenged and changed in the best possible ways.
As part of the CII-4 cohort serving from 2012-2014, I served as a Teaching English for Livelihoods Volunteer. My primary projects at my school in the gritty downtown area of Barranquilla were co-teaching English classes, leading extracurricular English groups, and other youth development activities. In my free time, I volunteered as a program coordinator for TECHO, an international NGO that mobilizes youth to fight poverty and is well known across Latin America for building transitional houses in extremely impoverished communities. When I first started, the organization’s Barranquilla office was fairly new and poised for growth. I was able to help them develop streamlined processes, organize their records, and become more efficient as they grew to serve more communities and incorporate more volunteers.
The effects of two years living in Barranquilla, Colombia don’t fade easily. That’s what I’m learning almost a year and a half after returning from Peace Corps service and settling into my new life in New York City. The Puerto Rican or Dominican Spanish I hear on the subway floats just as naturally into my ears as el español costeño. The exorbitant prices for tropical fruits in my grocery store don’t stop me from buying a mango every once in awhile. The salsa music roaring from cars on street corners in my East Harlem neighborhood in the summer makes me feel at home. It all transports me back to the loud, hot, vibrant city in Colombia where I was challenged and changed in the best possible ways.
As part of the CII-4 cohort serving from 2012-2014, I served as a Teaching English for Livelihoods Volunteer. My primary projects at my school in the gritty downtown area of Barranquilla were co-teaching English classes, leading extracurricular English groups, and other youth development activities. In my free time, I volunteered as a program coordinator for TECHO, an international NGO that mobilizes youth to fight poverty and is well known across Latin America for building transitional houses in extremely impoverished communities. When I first started, the organization’s Barranquilla office was fairly new and poised for growth. I was able to help them develop streamlined processes, organize their records, and become more efficient as they grew to serve more communities and incorporate more volunteers.